BLACK WINS CITY LODGE HOTELS 3 BEACHES CHALLENGE

Around 200 participants took part in Sunday's City Lodge Hotels 3 Beaches Challenge from Pollok Beach.

The recent River Mile Blu_Smooth Wetsuit champion, Slater Black, continued his fine form with a great win at Sunday's popular City Lodge Hotels Group 3 Beaches Challenge which took place in Nelson Mandela Bay on Sunday morning. This unique and exciting event highlights the magnificent beach front with a race that sees individuals and teams racing between Pollok Beach and Kings Beach with change-overs on each of the beaches in-between before running back along the beachfront promenade to finish back on the beach at Pollok Beach.

The 16 year old from Pearson High School completed the event in 1 hour and 3 minutes ahead of Gary Johnson and Graeme Renard with Amica de Jager winning the ladies race in 1 hour 4 minutes and 23 seconds from Liza Kingston with older sister Chane De Jager in 3rd place. First across the line on the day was veteran Surf Lifesaver Rob Smith who was the only contestant in the Lifesaving Ironman category which involved a malibu board paddle from Pollok Beach to Hobie Beach, swim to Humewood Beach and then a Surf Ski paddle to Kings Beach before the 3.5km run back.
 
The popular teams category involved Duo Teams (2 participants) and Quad Teams (4 participants) with the Duo team comprising of a swimmer that swam all 3 swim legs and a runner whilst the quad teams had 3 swimmers and 1 runner and was very popular amongst the families. The two Josh Tucker's from Grey High School teamed up in the T-Squared team and won the Duo Team honours in a time of 58 minutes 58 seconds with the Blu_Smooth team of Kevin Richards and Cindy Jansen van Rensburg in 2nd place (1:00:24) and Team Edge (Mark Edge and Nicholas Graeme) in 3rd place (1:04:43).

The young Kings Beach Nippers Quad team of Dane Archibald, Hilton Lindhorst, Siphosethu Nomoyi and Tristan Van Rooyen did well to win the Quad team category in a time of 1 hour 13 minutes and 5 seconds ahead of the Loftus Family (Howard, Nina, Callum and Zara) with team RSI (Shirley Nelson, Willem Rademeyer, Lea Steyn and Liza Steyn) finishing 3rd on the morning. The morning also saw some Stand-up paddlers taking part in the rough conditions with Alex and Channae Erens teaming up to finish in a time of 57 minutes and 36 seconds.

Full results and photographs from the event can be found on www.zsports.co.za.